What Non-Tech Founders Should Expect from Development Partners

The age of non-tech founders is upon us. For years, it’s been assumed that you had to have a tech background to start a tech company but that’s no longer the case. Technology is cheaper, it’s easier to spin up apps with minimum overhead, and talent is widely available. While all tech companies will need to bring tech in-house, it’s not always required in the early stages.

If you’re starting a company in an industry with little tech competition, you can often get by with outsourcing development initially because you won’t need to add features or maintain your product at a pace that requires in-house development.

Outsourcing development is also a viable option when you need a prototype to gauge market interest and get initial feedback. Many VC firms and angels want to see this even at a seed stage (and rightfully so). But your first version does not need to be built to scale. Instead, it simply needs to be built to get feedback. If it’s successful and you can secure seed funding, you can use that to start thinking about your long-term dev strategy.

With that in mind, I wanted to write a few notes on what founders should look for in a dev partner. I see too many non-tech founders going into partnerships without having the right background knowledge. I have a background in software myself…